


I'm Not Going (Home Without You)

by nhpw



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Boys Kissing, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Gay Castiel (Supernatural), Hand Jobs, Happy Ending, Homophobia, M/M, Making Out, Mechanic Dean, Meddling Sam, Minor Character Death, Past Character Death, Past Drug Use, Regretful Dean, School Reunion, Sharing a Bed, Single Parent Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 10:49:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12933660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nhpw/pseuds/nhpw
Summary: Dean Winchester and Castiel Shurley were best friends in high school. Then right before graduation, something happened that caused Dean to abandon his friend, which in turn sent Cas on a downward spiral that nearly destroyed him.Now, 20 years later, their class reunion is approaching and Cas is on the planning committee. He's guaranteed to be there. Dean, though he still lives in town, insists he's not going.He's wrong, of course.





	1. I Said I'm Not Going

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!! I bring you... this. Written for a prompt that basically asked for High School Reunion AUs, and as is typical of me when I get a prompt, it took some unexpected turns and ended up with actual plot and lots of feels.
> 
> A couple of notes before you dive in (or decide not to dive in): First, in the tags you'll notice Castiel/Kelly Kline. This is a PAST relationship, long past, and it becomes more clear in the story the how and why of her being in his life. She's Jack's biological mom, but Cas is a single dad so... you can probably connect the dots, there. The main focus of the story, of course, is the past and present of Cas and Dean.
> 
> And second, I tried to do something... experimental? Different?... with the chapter titles in this fic. They're not great when standing alone, but if you read through all the chapter titles, it's a complete message. It was just an idea I had about 3/4 of the way through writing, and I wanted to give it a shot.
> 
> As always, I hope you all enjoy.

He’d been watching the hubbub build over social media for months, but the actual invitation showed up in his mailbox on a lukewarm Tuesday in early April, when the buds were just starting to poke through on the trees, showing hints of spring, but mostly everything was still muddy and frozen and gray. The envelope itself was unassuming, but one look at the return address and Dean wanted to throw it away.

He probably would have, too, but as mentioned, this was a Tuesday, and on Tuesdays he always had dinner with Sam, and on this  _ particular  _ Tuesday, Dean was already running late. He’d stayed later than he should have at the garage, trying to finish an exhaust system repair that he’d personally promised to have done by noon the next day. Really, it shouldn’t have been a problem, but he’d needed a part, and the delivery guy was two hours later than expected, and… Anyway, the point was, Dean was already running late by the time he parked the Impala, so he gave consideration to the fact that he was going to route that unopened invitation directly to his circular file, and then he actually entered his house and realized he needed to shower before anyone got close enough to smell him. He headed to the shower without recycling the invitation and without locking the door.

And so it was that when Dean emerged from his bedroom after his shower, now dressed in a clean henley and jeans and his hair still sticking up in random clumps from his shower (because he was meeting his brother, not a hot date, so who the fuck actually cared), he found Sam stretched out on his couch, feet on the coffee table, and that stupid invitation in his hands. 

“You know, opening someone else’s mail is a federal offense,” Dean offered as he fluffed halfheartedly at his hair with a towel and strolled into the living room. He tossed the towel back over his shoulder in the general direction he’d come from before closing the gap and kicking at his brother’s feet. “And get your feet off my furniture, jerk.”

“Bitch,” Sam responded, but there was no heat in it. He was smiling, and he did comply with his brother’s request and moved down to make space for Dean to sit. “This what I think it is?”

“I’m not going,” Dean replied.

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Dean, this is your 20-year class reunion. It’s a pretty big deal.”

“Yeah, you would say that, Mr. Smarty McLawyerpants with the hot wife and 2 kids… you’ve got something to show for yourself. Me, I’m just a nobody who barely graduated in the first place, let alone made anything out of myself. I go, I gotta spend all friggin’ night listening to people like Dick Roman ramble on about how they clearly won at life. No. Waste of time, not doing that, save your breath.”

Anyone else might’ve let it go, but this was Sam, of course, and he knew Dean better than anyone, and he also liked to talk about feeeeelings and crap, so he couldn’t drop the issue without a very specific kind of prodding. “That’s not the real reason you don’t want to go.”

“You bust into my house, put your feet on my furniture, read my mail, and now you’re about to tell me my business?” Dean returned, but he couldn’t brush it off, because of course Sam wasn’t wrong.

“I’m not saying it’s not a valid reason.”

“Good.”

“I mean, I can’t blame you for not wanting to face the man who was your first love but when he told you  _ he  _ loved  _ you _ , you went into gay panic and pushed him away.”

“OK, see, that’s--”

“I guess you’ve been doing a really good job suppressing those feelings for 20 years, so why stop now, huh?”

Dean buried his face in his hands and let out a long exhale. “It was over a long time ago, Sam,” he said through his hands.

“So you’re saying that the fact that Castiel Shurley is on the planning committee and will definitely be at the reunion has absolutely nothing to do with your desire to avoid the event entirely?”

“Yes, that’s what I’m saying.” It was mumbled into his hands so he wouldn’t have to look his brother in the eye while he said it, mostly because they both knew it was exactly on the other side of the world from the truth.

But it got Sam to go quiet, and to concede the argument. “OK. But… I really think…”

“I didn’t ask.”

A large hand patted him on the shoulder, but Sam didn’t finish his thought. 

“Can we just go to dinner?”

“You gonna stop nagging me?”

“Scout’s honor.”

Dean let it drop at that. He removed his hands from his face and took in his brother with raised eyebrows before pushing himself to standing. “You were a horrible boy scout,” he muttered as he brushed past his brother and grabbed the Impala’s keys off the counter where he’d dropped them when he’d arrived home. “I’m driving.”

***

Castiel forgot to get the mail on Tuesday. He forgot because that particular Tuesday in early April was bright and sunny and Jack had his first baseball game of the season - his last season of high school baseball ever, because in eight weeks he’d be graduating and preparing to go off to college. Castiel had vowed that he’d go to every single game this season, because he had a limited number of opportunities remaining to see his son play, and damned if he was going to let those slip by. So he’d driven right from a boring meeting about an ad pitch about household cleaner to a town an hour away and had gotten to the playing field just in time for the anthem.

After the game, Jack had ridden the bus back with this team, and Cas had picked him up from the school parking lot and taken him out for ice cream - a post-game tradition, win or lose, since Jack first put a bat to the ball at age 5 - and when they got home, both of them had gone straight to bed.

He hadn’t given a single thought toward stopping at the mailbox.

And so on Wednesday, when it was just a regular day and Jack just had practice and would drive himself home afterward, Castiel picked up two days’ worth of mail and immediately discarded everything but two white envelopes.

One was small, invitation-sized, and addressed to Cas. He knew exactly what it was, and it brought a small smile to his lips. He set aside.

The other was a standard-size envelope, thick enough to require additional postage, and addressed to Jack.

The return address was pre-printed with the logo of Stanford University.

Castiel’s smile widened enough to split his face, and he took the letter to Jack’s room and laid it on his pillow. The promise made him proud, but it wasn’t his letter to open.

He returned empty-handed to the kitchen and picked up the invitation that was addressed to him, tearing into the envelope with nimble fingers.

He’d known it was coming, of course; Anna had told them all via their Facebook group that she’d put the invitations en masse in the mail on Saturday. And he knew without question that he was going. He hadn’t spent the past six months arguing with Hester Prim about the cost of locations and decor for nothing. No, he’d go, and he’d play the “busy being a single dad” card, and he’d show off pictures of Jack and tell stories about his successes; he’d talk minimally about his own career, have a drink or two, and call it a night.

He’d have to drink, of course, or the memories would get him, especially if…

No. He shut that thought down immediately; there was no way Dean Winchester would show.

The slam of the front door behind Jack jolted Cas out of the memories that currently threatened to consume him. He set the invitation down as Jack called out, “Dad? You here?”

“In the kitchen,” he called back, getting to his feet and going to open the fridge. He resolved not to mention the letter from Stanford; he’d let Jack find it on his own time. “How do you feel about leftover chicken for dinner?”

“Yeah, sure. Hey, would it be OK if I had a friend over to study?”

“Tonight?”

“Test is tomorrow. AP Chemistry.” He made a face, and Cas returned a smile. “So… yeah?”

“Yeah,” Cas echoed. “Just for a couple of hours, OK?” He pulled the tub of leftover chicken out of the fridge, set it on the counter, and followed it with a bean salad and a bunch of raw broccoli, which he handed to Jack for chopping.

Jack reached for a knife in the knife block, and as he was leaning over, his eyes fell on the invitation. “Hey, look at you. You got invited to the party you’re throwing!”

Cas shook his head and laughed as he prepped the chicken in a roasting pan; a few minutes under the broiler should warm it up to edible. “I’m not the only one throwing the party. It was a group effort.”

“Right, I mean, you just had the final word on the location, the catering, the decorations…”

“Alright, alright.” He waved a hand at his son, and the boy fell quiet as he multitasked chopping the broccoli into florets and reading the invitation. 

“Hey, good news! You’ve got almost three months to decide what you’re gonna wear!”

Cas sighed and shook his head again as he realized it might be quite some time before Jack actually made his way back to his room. Definitely time for a change of subject. “You got mail today too,” he said, as casually as he could manage.

Jack paused the knife mid-chop and looked up. “I what?”

“You got mail today,” Cas repeated with his back turned. “From some school.”

“Are you kidding me right now?! Where is it? What is it? Is it from Stanford? Did I get in? I’ll shit my pants if I got in.”

“Then I would suggest you open the letter in the bathroom.”

Jack took off down the hall to his room, and Cas waited out the brief silence before there was a ripping and tearing, and then a shout of exuberance. He finished putting the pan of chicken under the broiler before he shouted back, “I expect you to clean up your own mess!”


	2. But I Admit I Have Regrets

_ “So you got in?” _

_ “Yeah. My dad’s beside himself about the cost, but… there’re always scholarships and loans, you know?” _

_ Dean didn’t respond. The evening was especially warm for early May; they were laying side by side under the oak tree in Cas’ yard, stretched out on their backs to look at the stars overhead. When the silence dragged on for too long, Cas rolled on his side to face Dean and put a flat hand on Dean’s chest. “I won’t go if you don’t want me to.” _

_ “Are you kidding me? You got into college, Cas. Not just college - Berkley, the school of your dreams! Why wouldn’t I want you to go?” But he didn’t. He really didn’t. _

_ Cas looked away, and moved his hand, suddenly becoming very interested in playing with a single blade of grass. “I thought… If I stayed… I dunno. I could go to KU instead, and you and I could…” _

_ Dean felt a tingle of something like tangled want and dread  run down his spine, and he swallowed hard and slowly pushed himself to sitting with his hands pressed to the ground on either side of his body. “We could what, Cas?” _

_ It happened so quickly, but the moment seemed to freeze in time, imprinting on Dean and his mind and his entire being: Castiel, his friend, his confidant, someone he’d started making insane excuses just to spend time with, someone he definitely cared an awful lot for in ways he didn’t dare consider because they made his gut clench up -- Castiel Shurley kissed him. _

_ It wasn’t much - just a press of lips against lips - but at the same time, it was everything. That tingle down his spine spread into an all-consuming warmth, and Dean wanted nothing more than to grab onto Castiel’s t-shirt and clutch it in his fists and pull him close and hold onto that moment for as long as time allowed. _

_ But he didn’t. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. _

_ Because this was 1997, and this was Lawrence, Kansas, and he was Dean Winchester, and Dean Winchester wasn’t gay and did not kiss boys. He didn’t. Not even if it was really good, not even if it was something he’d secretly wondered about, not even with his (best?) friend. _

_ For a few seconds after their lips parted, they both just stared at each other, wide-eyed. And then Dean blinked, and he pushed himself to his feet, and with a final look at where Cas was still sitting on the ground, he ran away into the night. _

 

Dean startled awake, breath coming in pants, like he’d been running. And he had, he supposed - in his dream, anyway. It was odd, because he usually couldn’t run in his dreams, but he’d definitely seen this one exactly as it had gone down 20 years ago, complete with the part where he ran away from Castiel and shut him out of his life forever, because that was somehow preferable to dealing with his own feelings.

Not that Dean didn’t dream about Cas - he did. Sometimes he dreamed about the things they’d done in that last year of high school, which his now-adult and comfortably bisexual brain could recognize as flirting. Sometimes he dreamed about what Cas must look like now; about the happy life he’d probably built up around himself. And sometimes, when he had sex dreams where his partner was male, he woke up painfully hard and sweating, and he knew without question that his partner in the dream had been Castiel.

He glanced at his bedside clock and groaned. It was pushing 5:00 in the morning - too early to get up, but too late to really fall back into a restful sleep.

So he kicked off the covers and got up.

He sloughed to the kitchen and started a pot of coffee; shuffled to the bathroom to take care of that business; pulled up his social media on his phone.

Groaned.

He retrieved his coffee and discarded his phone, hellbent on getting his fill of caffeine before he even attempted to address the Facebook message he’d received late last night.

Over his second cup, he read it again. It was from Benny - one of approximately five people from high school that he still kept in touch with - and it said,  _ I booked a room in Lawrence, Cher. See you next month. _

At the bottom of his second cup of coffee, Dean still couldn’t unclench his gut.  _ I’m not going _ , he replied simply.  _ Have fun, though! _

He really hoped the “!” made it sound sincere, and that this would be the end of it. With a single nod of his head, he fired off the message and discarded his phone while he finished getting ready for his work day.

He didn’t actually look at his phone again until he crawled out from beneath a Honda Civic after two hours of tinkering with the exhaust system. He was covered in grime and sweat, and he needed five minutes to collect himself before giving the repair a final overview and signing off.

The Facebook Messenger icon indicated he had a new message waiting, and he gave an exaggerated roll of his eyes and considered crawling back under that Honda and staying there for the rest of the day.

_ What, you too good for us now? _

And of course once he read it, he knew Benny would  _ know  _ that he read it, and if he didn’t respond that was as good as a yes, which just wasn’t OK by Dean, so he thought on it and then hammered out a reply.

_ It ain’t like that. Just not my scene, is all. How about we compromise and we’ll grab a drink while you’re in town, just the two of us? _

Dean was just getting to the bottom of his water bottle when Benny’s reply pinged in.

_ Doesn’t take a genius to know what this is about, Cher. _

The same rules applied to this message as the first; Dean knew that Benny would know Dean had read it, and if he didn’t reply, that was as good as confirmation.

This time, he didn’t respond.

He shoved his phone back into his locker and refilled his water bottle before heading back to the floor of the garage. Back at the Honda Civic, he stretched back underneath her once again and went over his repair step by step. Satisfied, he rolled back out and stood. He went to the office and grabbed the keys.

He cycled through the routine test drive, returned a call to the owner that she could pick up her vehicle that day, and put the car through a wash-and-wax for good measure before rolling in to the next vehicle awaiting his attention.

And so it was that he managed to lose himself to the rhythm of his day, and he genuinely did forget all about Benny and Castiel and the stupid high school class reunion until he was home, showered, and redressed in sweatpants and an old t-shirt. He sat down with a beer and his phone, and he saw the god-forsaken Facebook Messenger alert, and he didn’t have the energy to pretend he hadn’t seen it.

He opened Benny’s message; it was less than an hour old, and it said simply,  _ That’s what I thought _ .

There were two people on the planet who knew exactly what had happened between Dean and Cas 20 years prior; two people who knew the real reason Dean didn’t want to attend the reunion. Not that the excuses he’d given out loud were lies, exactly - it really  _ wasn’t  _ his scene, and he really  _ didn’t  _ have a lot of desire to rub elbows with people he hadn’t seen in two decades who’d looked down their noses at him back then and probably would do the same now. Still, he had remained a Lawrence resident, and he might be tempted to go, if it weren’t for Castiel.

If he went, he’d definitely see Cas, and Cas would see him, and it would be awkward and bring back all of those feelings Dean had buried deep long ago. He knew Cas had grown up successful and beautiful. He knew he was ad exec for froo-froo types in California. Knew he’d probably long forgotten all about Dean and that awkward kiss in the dark.

But Dean hadn’t forgotten. Dean’s gut twisted into knots every time he thought about it, or every time it slipped into his mind or his dreams unbidden. He felt guilty and ashamed; he felt like if there was ever anything he’d truly done wrong in his life, that was it, and to face it now and apologize would just be… awkward. He’d had several relationships with men in the past two decades - most of them in the past eight years, since he’d decided at age 30 that he was ready to put a label on himself and come out as bisexual.

Hell, back when they were 18, back when all Dean could think was what his father would do or say if he knew his golden boy was  _ gay…  _ he hadn’t even known it was possible to like both. No one talked about those things. No one had ever told him that that was  _ okay  _ \- that bisexuality was actually a thing.

He’d hashed through a lot since Cas.

He wondered if Cas had hashed through the same stuff, or if he’d known what he was, been confident in what he was, even back then.

Dean’s phone pinged with another incoming message, interrupting his thoughts. He picked it up. Read it. Read it again.

_ You chicken shit _ , it said.  _ You ran away from him that night, and it seems to me you’re  _ **_still_ ** _ running _ .

As with Benny’s other messages throughout the day, Dean knew that to read and not respond was as good as condemnation.

In this case, it was completely valid.

He let the message go unanswered, acknowledging it for the truth that it was as he cracked open a beer and downed half of it in one long swig.

***

“Jack!  _ Jack _ !”

Cas and Jack turned toward the voice in perfect tandem - same speed, same turning radius, same raised eyebrows - to lay eyes on Alex. She smiled when she saw him and raced across the school yard to sweep him up in a hug that softened as he spun her and then set her down so that he could properly kiss her on the mouth.

Cas looked away respectfully. His son was 18; he was a man, and this was a lady, and she made him happy. There was no reason to raise ire over a kiss; certainly not on their graduation day, of all the days.

When he looked back, they had their fingers knitted together in a singsongy handhold, looking every bit the part of young love.

Cas smiled at them, trying to stay wistful without getting morose. That could’ve been him and Dean, 20 years ago. It could’ve been. Maybe it should have been.

But it wasn’t.

He and Dean had barely made eye contact on graduation day, and they’d only ever had one kiss; a kiss Cas wasn’t sure if he should regret, because certainly nothing good had come of it. Twenty years is a long time to carry a regret, but it was always a small weight in Castiel’s back pocket that he sometimes reached around and pinched at just to make sure it still hurt.

He winced and pushed it down, now.

“How about a picture?” He said instead, smiling a little too big and directing Alex and Jack to stand just in front of a group of saplings in front of the school. They were dressed in identical black robes and mortarboard hats, but their personalities and accomplishments set them apart: Jack wore a gold cord around his neck and shoulders, signifying his exemplary academic accomplishments, while the top of Alex’s mortarboard read “THX AUNTIE” - spelled out in masking tape.

Cas snapped a couple of posed shots, then a few more as they got silly and candid.

He was just pocketing his phone when he heard a voice from behind them call out, “Hold on, don’t break up the photoshoot before I get mine.”

“Hi, Jody,” Cas returned before turning to face her and press her into a congratulatory hug. “Looks like we made it.”

“Sometimes I wasn’t sure I’d see the day,” she affirmed with a nod, before gesturing at Jack and Alex. “Alright, lovebirds. Show me some smiles.” 

The pair posed good-naturedly, and then there was a swapping and exchanging of phones between Cas and Jody so that they each could pose with their own progeny. 

Jody finished snapping a few final shots of Cas and Jack, including one in which she wasn’t sure Cas was aware his son was giving him bunny ears, and then passed his phone back and started ushering them all inside. “Let’s go! I gotta make sure I get a seat next to your dad, so I can elbow him when he cries.” She turned and threw a wink over her shoulder at Jack.

Cas refrained from any denial of the fact that tears were a possibility.

In actuality, Cas didn’t absorb much at all about the ceremony. That wasn’t for his memories anyway; it was for Jack’s. He did remember the proud moment when Jack’s name was called during the deferral of diplomas, and the boy - the  _ young man _ \- walked purposefully across the stage to accept his diploma, shake the principal’s hand, and raise his arms up in jubilation. Cas snapped a few pictures, and he saw Jody doing the same as Alex followed close behind, and the two caught up on the descending stairs and embraced in an excited hug.

Cas didn’t have a corresponding memory, and right then, he felt the absence like a rock in his gut.

He hadn’t been able to hug Dean after they walked across the stage; he hadn’t even been able to look him in the eye for more than a few nervous tenths-of-seconds across a crowded gymnasium.

That day - his high school graduation day - was the first day of the worst years of Castiel’s life. His stomach was in a perpetual knot, tears of anger and rejection and betrayal stinging constantly in his eyes. The last time he made eye contact with Dean, he’d bitten his lower lips to keep the sobs in.

Dean had mirrored his reaction.  _ That _ , Castiel remembered  _ very  _ clearly.

But that had been the last time he’d ever seen Dean Winchester.

Everyone around Castiel was rising to their feet to applaud, and Jody grabbed his arm and yanked him out of his reverie, prodding him to do the same. As they clapped for the new graduates, Cas plastered a fake smile on his face, and Jody leaned over and spoke close to his ear, “I can hear your gears turning from here. We’re gonna talk about that later.” She wasn’t whispering, but the echo of applause through the gymnasium and the jubilation of the others around them meant that no one heard her anyway. 

The evening was a flurry of activity. Jack attended his own graduation party before skipping out to visit his friends. It wasn’t until most of the leftover food had been put away that Jody approached Cas with a glass of white wine in each hand, passed one to him, and saddled up to him on the back porch as the sun dipped below the horizon that their conversation actually picked up as promised.

“Spill,” she said simply as she took a slow drink from her own glass.

Cas just chuckled under his breath and sipped at his glass as he leaned against the porch railing with feigned ease. He shook his head. “It was a long time ago.”

“And yet it had you by the head so hard, you got lost in your thoughts at your son’s high school graduation.”

“So.” She turned sideways to face his profile and braced her right forearm on the rail. “You spot a former lover in the crowd? Remember you left the oven on? What?”

“No. No… no. This was, uh. I was…” He sighed. Jody would keep prodding until he spilled; he knew that from years of torturous experience. It would be quicker and less agonizing just to be honest. “Did I ever tell you about Dean?”

“Dean? First-love Dean, broke your heart at 18, the main reason you went so deep into the closet and almost fucked up your entire future, that Dean?”

“Yeah.”

Her brow furrowed in thought. “Wait. Was  _ he  _ there?”

“What? No… no. It’s not-- our 20-year class reunion is coming up next month, and it’s got me a little caught up in my memories. I was, uh. At graduation, I found myself… thinking that was the last time I saw him. At our own graduation,” he clarified, though maybe it wasn’t necessary.

“That’s all well and good, Cas, but if the guy’s still got this much of a pull on your heart, maybe you ought to sort that out before you space out behind the wheel of your car or something. Is he going to be at the reunion?”

“No idea.”

She just raised her eyebrows at him before going back to sipping at her glass of wine.

Castiel sighed and took a long drink.

“Where’re the kids?” He asked after a few minutes of silence, wanting very much to lighten the mood.

Jody waved a hand toward the house dismissively. “Last I heard from Alex, they were headed out to Chrissy’s party. And they’re not kids anymore, Cas.”

He sighed and took another long drink, emptying his glass.

When he finished, Jody was staring at him, waiting patiently for him to meet her eyes. “And you ain’t either. When you go back to Lawrence, you talk to Dean. Even if it’s just to make small talk. Even if it’s to punch him in the face. You come back with a story for me, or you don’t come back.”

“You have zero control over my life, Jody.”

She just laughed and patted his shoulder. “More wine?”

“Obviously.”


	3. Maybe I Can Make It Right

Dean could have sworn he’d thrown the invitation away.

In fact, as he tapped the cursed thing in a nervous rhythm against his kitchen counter and thought about it, he was certain of it: He’d put it in the recycling bin after his conversation in May with Benny. He distinctly remembered, in fact, that after he’d read Benny’s last text, and after a solid beer and a half of wallowing in his own self-loathing, he’d picked the thing up and gotten rid of it once and for all. He wasn’t going. If he had been planning to go at all (which he hadn’t, but if there’d been even the slightest chance), it was definitely gone now, because not only was Castiel going to be there, but Benny, too, and Benny’s complete lack of tact and filter after a couple of drinks would definitely have him instigating a totally gay Dean and Castiel reunion. 

Dean didn’t want any part of that.

If he was totally honest, he suspected Cas didn’t want any part of that either, nor any part of Dean himself. Dean had broken Castiel’s heart, and that was the end of that.

And it was 20 years ago.

That’s way too wide of a gap to bridge, even with the most sincere apologies on Earth.

But when Dean closed his eyes, he couldn’t help but picture those bluest of blue eyes, and wonder if they still shown as brightly now as they had before Dean had sucked the light out of them that night.

He shook his head to force himself out of the reverie. The point was, he’d definitely thrown this thing away, and yet here it was, stuck to his fridge with his hefty Mount Rushmore souvenir magnet.

Moreover, as he considered it more closely, the invitation was there - but the RSVP card was missing.

A tilt of his head and a glance at the calendar on the wall and he cursed a blue streak under his breath.

He was halfway through an expletive-laden text to his brother when he lost patience with his own thumbs and called him instead.

“Did you RSVP to my high school reunion?”

“Hi, Dean. I’m doing great, how about you?”

“So help me, Sammy, I will come over there and rip out your throat.”

There was a chuckle on the other end of the line that Dean could only describe as self-satisfied. “You’re going. I ordered you chicken. Have fun.”

“I’m going to kill you.”

“No, you’re not. Look, Dean… you’ll go, or you’ll blow it off, I can’t really control that. But at least by sending in your RSVP before the deadline, I saved you from the regret you’d carry around if you suddenly wanted to go but hadn’t said so in time. I bought you more time to make your decision. Honestly, you should be thanking me.”

“No, what I’m gonna be doing is changing the locks on my doors and not giving you a new key. Sam, this is not OK.”

“I’m-- OK. I’m sorry. But just. Think about it.”

“No.”

“Dean--”

Dean hung up before Sam could get anything else out, slammed his phone down on the countertop, and quietly fumed.

It didn’t matter. He still wasn’t going.

He was angry. Angry at Sam, first of all, for being a complete asshole. 

Angry at Benny, for not being a supportive friend who understood why Dean had no desire to drudge up old memories and old feelings by getting within staring distance of Castiel Shurley.

Angry at Castiel for-- for-- well, for making this complicated by being so loyal to his alumni organization status and keeping his position as Class Treasurer a priority for 20 years and counting, and for having the bluest eyes to ever blue.

But mostly, he was angry and annoyed with himself.

He did have good memories of high school; he did have friends he hadn’t spoken to in years; people he might like to see again.

And for 20 years, he’d let all of the good times and the football games and the basketball practices and that one really awesome trip to the state tournament be overshadowed by the events of one single night, right at the end of it all, that had made him feel things he didn’t know how to deal with at the time and so he’d run away in fear.

_ Seems to me you’re  _ **_still_ ** _ running _ .

“Dammit, Cas…” He shook his head and buried his face in his hands.

Fucking Benny. Fucking Castiel. Fucking Sam.

But he knew it wasn’t their fault.

It was his.

He picked up his phone again and pulled up the abandoned conversation with Benny from last month.

He typed and deleted the message several times before settling on a response.

_ I’m done running _ , he punched out.  _ See you at the reunion _ .

***

_ Dean Winchester RSVP’d. He’ll be there _ .

Castiel read the message three times before it sank in just what Anna was telling him.

Dean was going to be at the reunion.

Dean, the one who got away, the boy who’d broken Castiel’s heart and set him on a path to self-destruction that had taken so many wonderful and painful twists and turns before ending in a string of epiphanies and an ultimate discovery of himself… Dean Winchester was going to be at the reunion, where Castiel would also be, and there was a non-zero chance that they’d find themselves in a position to reconnect.

And say… what?

That was the problem, after all these years, stemming out from the way they’d left things. Castiel still couldn’t think back on that night and that first kiss without wincing. He wondered how Dean felt about it; if he’d had regrets; if he… well, he was coming, at any rate, and Jody had basically banned Castiel from the entire state of California until he at least said hello to the other man.

He let his emotions wash over him, not shying away from any of them: Anticipation, relief, regret, embarrassment… a touch of anger.

At the end of it, he let out a long exhale, and at the bottom of that breath, he opened a second browser tab alongside his Facebook and navigated out to Orbitz.

He searched flights and compared prices, and when he booked his trip to fly into Kansas City, it was with a rental car and a one-way ticket.


	4. When I See You Again

“If you need anything at all, call Jody.”

“Dad--”

“And I’m just a phone call away if there’s a real emergency. I can take the first flight back if you need--”

“Dad, stop.” Jack gave him a calming smile and put his hands on Castiel’s shoulders. His eyes were wide and expectant, as though he was certain that Castiel was going to continue rambling on in spite of the interruption.

He didn’t, though. He stopped, and he nodded, slightly abashed. 

“I’ll be fine. I think,” Jack said as he hefted his father’s carry-on bag out of the trunk and passed it off to him, “that you’re more worried about yourself than you are about me.”

Cas just stared at him, dumbfounded, and let his lips curve up into a small, closed-lip smile. “You know, sometimes I feel like I… like I blinked, and there you were, all grown up. How did this happen?” At Jack’s lack of response, Cas sighed. “I’m proud of you, Jack.”

“Proud of you too, Dad.”

“For what?”

“Taking a chance, I guess. So… you gonna bring this Dean guy home with you or…?”

“I… kind of doubt that. But as long as I come back with more answers than questions, I think I’ll be OK. I’m not looking for forever; just hoping for resolution.” He pulled Jack into a quick hug and passed off the car keys. “Don’t burn the house down,” he instructed, because it seemed like the kind of thing he ought to say to lighten the mood.

“Don’t forget to come home,” came the reply. “Have a safe trip, Dad.”

And that was it. Castiel breezed into the airport and allowed himself to get caught up in the hubub of sound and the rush of checking his bag and getting his ticket and going through security. He settled into his aisle seat, and after takeoff, he closed his eyes. 

_ “Dean?” _

_ “Yeah, Cas?” _

_ “You ever… you ever think that maybe someday, the world won’t be so concerned about… you know. People like me?” _

_ “People like you?” _

_ “You know. Guys… who like other guys.” _

_ Dean just shrugged and stared out across the soccer field. It was still snow-covered, and despite it being late March, the weather was still cold enough that their breath was visible with each exhale. “I hope so. For you, I mean. You’re my best friend, and I think you deserve to be happy.” _

_ Cas just kept his head turned to the side, staring at Dean as Dean stared out across the open field before them. _

_ He was beautiful. _

_ Everything about Dean was perfect, despite Dean’s continued insistence to the contrary, and of all the things Cas told Dean, there was the one thing he’d never said, that he could never say: That he knew he was gay because he was head over heels in love with Dean. That he’d asked what he’d asked just now not as a hypothetical, but because it would be graduation before they knew it, and Cas was keenly aware that he was running out of time. He didn’t really want to know if the world would ever change for people like him - he wanted Dean to say he hoped that the world would change for people like them. He wanted validation of his feelings; some kind of reassurance that it went both ways, that he could stop burying them and give in and just kiss Dean the way he wanted to, the way he’d dreamed about. _

_ But that’s not what had happened _ .

_ He bit his lip and turned his head to mirror Dean’s posture, trying to focus his vision on the empty field. _

_ A few blinks brought it into focus though the tears he refused to shed _ .

Cas startled awake as the plane jolted over rough skies.

In real time, he let a tear fall and leaned his head back, praying for sleep to reclaim him and make this a quick trip.

***

He was not freaking out.

He was doing a lot of things: Ironing a shirt, drinking a beer, watching old Scooby Doo reruns on TV, eating Chinese food of questionable vintage.

But he was not freaking out.

His phone rang, and he set down the iron. “I’m freaking out.”

Sam’s chuckle was equal parts warm and annoying. “Yeah, I get that.”

“What do I say? How do I even…”

“Hmmm.” Sam sighed, and not for the first time in their lives, Dean felt like he was the younger brother, pleading to his older brother for relationship advice. “You say hello. You ask him how he’s been. And you say that you’re sorry, that you’d value his friendship, and that you hope that you can maybe have some of that again, despite the fact that you were an asshole 20 years ago.” A beat. “Unless…”

“Unless? Unless, what unless?”

“Unless you want more than a friendship.”

“What? Shut up. No. I’m not-- I don’t even know if I’d-- Cas had a lot going for him,” he lamented. “He’s probably married, two kids, white picket fence, the whole nine. There’s no way he’s even in my league.”

“Facebook says he’s single.”

Dean slammed the iron down on the board and gripped his phone tighter. “When this is over, you and I are gonna have a serious chat about you staying out of my personal business.”

There was a beat of silence. Then, “If it really bothers you, I’ll stop. I just…”

“Just what?”

“Look, Dean. You’re my brother, and I love you, and I think you deserve to be happy. And I’m sorry I pushed so hard on this, it’s just that… you’ve been carrying the guilt about Castiel like a bowling ball around your neck for 20 years. I honestly don’t know if the two of you have a shot at anything more than a reconciliation, but even if all you is say you’re sorry… it’s bound to lighten the weight. And I want that for you.”

“Well, thanks.” Dean frowned, smiled, and returned to his ironing. “Iiii don’t know,” he lamented on a sigh. “I mean, I know what he looks like, much as I try to avoid it. Facebook knows we probably know each other and keeps being helpful,  _ suggesting friends _ so I’ve seen him around, you know, and he’s not bad looking, and he’s successful, I know that, and I… might feel…” He stopped, set down the iron, and clutched the board on both sides of his body as he shut his eyes against the tension headache he could feel coming on. “It’s been 20 years, Sam. I don’t know if I still love him. I don’t know if he’d still love  _ me _ . I’ve changed. He’s changed. We’ve all changed, everything’s changed.”

“Dean?”

“What?”

“Did you just admit that you loved him, back then?”

Twenty years, and he’d never actually said the words, and yet here they were in a moment on the cusp of a headache and the promise that tomorrow evening might bring everything rushing back. “I never told him, Sam. I didn’t kiss him back, and… and I didn’t say… there was so much I should’ve said, but I didn’t say any of it.”

“You gonna say it now?”

“I don’t know if I can, Sam.”

“Do me a favor?”

“What?”

“Try.”


	5. And After All This Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Possible trigger warning for heavy angst, reference to past drug use, needles, rehab, and death from heroin OD.

Castiel was talking to Hannah about their respective sons’ choice in pre-law colleges - Christian had been accepted to Harvard  _ of course _ \- when he saw Dean enter the room, and as their eyes made contact, he stopped in the middle of a sentence about… what, exactly, he had no idea. It didn’t matter. He was vaguely aware of his brain using his mouth to say, “Excuse me a moment,” and he knew the fingers of his right hand were still holding the stem of a wine glass that was ⅔ full of a sparkling white. He knew his feet were carrying him with measured steps in Dean’s direction, and that his eyes refused to look away.

Nothing else mattered.

Then his ears heard his own voice say, “Hello Dean,” and about that time his heart realized just how much his brain and body had conspired to act against his permission. He hardened his expression even as Dean’s lips parted on unsaid words. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

“Yeah, I uh. I almost didn’t.”

“Sounds more like you.” He bit it out and then wished it back, because the green eyes he’d been so desperately in love with 20 years ago were still the same, readable to a fault, and those words had stung.

“I guess I deserved that,” came the hushed reply, and Castiel’s gut clenched as he realized that Dean had gone from blatant staring to not being able to meet Cas’ eyes at all.

Cas felt a blush creeping into his cheeks, and he thought maybe he should apologize, because they were both adults now, after all, and they could have a civilized conversation. But as he was opening his mouth to do so, Dean surprised him. He raised his head, reached his right arm up to scratch nervously at the back of his neck, and said, “Look, um. Cas. I.” And if he’d planned a proper speech, he couldn’t seem to find the words now.

“You wanna maybe step outside?”

“Yeah.” Dean looked relieved, and they turned together and went out the front door to the restaurant’s outdoor reception area.

He tried not to feel the weight of other people’s eyes on his back.

They were barely out of the building when Dean turned around to face him, rooted himself to the ground and blurted, “I’m sorry,” like if he didn’t do it right then, he was going to lose his nerve and… well, run again, probably.

And any fight Cas had in him, any anger or resentment that remained toward Dean rushed out of his body in an instant. He softened, and the corners of his lips perked up into a small smile.

Dean wasn’t done, though; it seemed the apology and maybe the fact that Cas hadn’t bitten his head off in reply had given him courage. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I was a jerk and I just… God, I was so stupid. I just left you there, and you were my best friend and I…” He shrugged and held his hands out, palms up, body deflated in a plea. “I’m so sorry Cas.”

“I can forgive you. Now,” he added with a nod of his head, and he took a hesitant step to close the distance between them. “Back then I was… I was pretty messed up.”

“But hey, you pulled yourself up, huh? Livin’ the life in Cali, fancy ad exec…”

“Single dad,” Cas added.

“Yeah?”

He reached for his phone and pulled up a picture of Jack and himself from graduation day. “That’s Jack. He’ll start at Stanford in the fall.”

“Stanford, no way! Sam went there! My little brother, Sam,” he clarified with a nervous clearing of his throat, and the added note tugged at Castiel’s heartstrings. He was qualifying it in case Cas didn’t remember Sam.

Of course he did. He remembered everything about Dean like they’d just graduated yesterday.

“I remember,” he affirmed with a nod. “How is he?”

“Everything I’m not.” Dean ducked his head, spoke to the grass beneath their feet as they walked into one of the darker corners and found a place to lean against the restaurant’s brick siding. “Smart, accomplished. Lawyer. Married. Kids.”

“So you’re not, uh…”

“No.” Dean cleared his throat and Cas couldn’t help noticing he’d returned to not meeting Cas’ gaze. He didn’t elaborate, either; instead, he changed the subject, and when he did he was able to lift his eyes. “Jack, he’s uh. He’s older than I figured any kid of yours might… you know… I just figured you wouldn’t, uh. Not until after college, at least.”

“Well, like I said, I was pretty messed up.” He delivered it flat; truth, but with an edge of damnation. “I wasn’t gay. I couldn’t be gay. I left Lawrence and went out to  _ find myself _ , my completely one-hundred-percent heterosexual self, but what I actually found was that no matter how hard I tried, I wasn’t that at all. So I did the next best thing: I buried myself in drugs that would help me forget. If I couldn’t feel, I didn’t care. If I didn’t care, I didn’t hate myself. And it worked for awhile.”

“Cas…”

But he was in it now, this huge confession, this life story of who he’d been right out of high school, and there was no turning back. “Kelly was like me. A junkie.” He huffed a laugh at the term. “We met at a party, and we got high. And then we met at another party and did the same thing. And then we started making our own parties, just the two of us, a couple of needles, a flame and a bag of heroin. Smack did what my brain couldn’t - it brought me euphoria, made me  _ feel things _ for a woman. ‘Course we weren’t very responsible, and pretty soon she was knocked up.” He looked at Dean, then; made sure to hold his gaze. “It was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

***

Dean couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He know what he probably looked like - jaw practically on the floor, eyes bugged out like he’d forgotten he was supposed to blink. But of all the things he expected to say to Cas tonight… well, in the end, he wasn’t saying much at all. His penance wasn’t to speak; it was to listen.

“How is that possible?”

“When my parents got wind that I’d gotten a girl in trouble, they came out for a visit. And when they came out for a visit they saw what had become of me. Kelly and I both went to rehab on their dime. They visited, and they pestered, and they fussed over Kelly and the baby and… me, I guess. And we made a promise we’d get clean. For eight weeks, we ate decent food, we kept decent hours, we went to therapy… we saw our baby begin to grow. And I owned up to some things - first and foremost, I was gay, and I didn’t love Kelly. She was a friend, we were bonded by the child, but. I didn’t feel romantic love for her. I couldn’t. Still we… when we got out of rehab, we got an apartment, started making plans. We were good. Things were… stable. I started college; she got a decent job. Then Jack was born and…” Dean winced as he looked away and told the empty space to his left, “Kelly couldn’t handle it.”

“W-- was he-- did the drugs--”

“That’s the irony of it all. No. Jack was born totally healthy. But Kelly just--” he cut himself off and shook his head, and when he spoke again, his tone was hollow, devoid of emotion, and he still wasn’t looking at Dean. “When Jack was three weeks old, she came to me. I still remember, it was a Tuesday, and I was working on a paper for my Intro to Advertising class. I wanted to do well because this class was a prerequisite for entry to the business school and-- she knocked on the door, and when I looked up, she had the needle in her hand and tears in her eyes and I just-- I said no. No, I wouldn’t, and she shouldn’t either. But she did anyway and… she took both doses, the one she’d intended for me as well as her own. And she just didn’t wake up.”

“I’m so sorry, Cas. If I’d-- I--”

“I’m not telling you this because I blame you,” Cas imparted, and as he finally looked back at Dean, he had a tiny smile on his face and sincerity in his eyes. God, those eyes. Dean had a flash of a memory of wanting so badly to get lost in those eyes. “Since then it’s been mostly just me and Jack.”

“Mostly?”

“I mean, I dated. Men,” he clarified. “I’m not-- sober, and with my head on straight and a modicum of self-respect, I have no interest in women at all. But otherwise… just us. And we’ve done pretty all right.” He was smiling, and Dean couldn’t believe that after a story like that he could be  _ smiling _ , but he was. And then he said, “What about you?” And Dean had to take a second and a few blinks for clarity before he could respond.

“I’ve been here. Never left Lawrence. Spent 15 years working at Singer Auto, and when Bobby died, I inherited the place.”

“You own your own business? That’s no small accomplishment, Dean.”

He waved a hand in dismissal. “I stumbled into it.”

“Still. You’ve kept it in business for five years. Sorry to hear about Bobby,” he added, sobered. “I know you guys were close.”

“Like a second father. Sometimes like a better father.” Dean sighed, but really, after Cas’ bombshell there was no way he was going to sit here and get morose over his own losses. “And Sammy lives in KCK, working at a decent law firm. Married, two kids. We have dinner once a week, just the two of us. But otherwise, it’s mostly just me.”

“Mostly.” An echo of Dean’s question, but with a more definitive tone.

“I mean, I’ve dated. Women and men,” he clarified, and locked Cas’ gaze at that, catching a hint of the surprise he was hoping for. “I’m, uh. Took me years after high school to come to terms, but it turns out I swing both ways.”

“I’m happy for you, Dean.”

A silence fell over them, and Dean couldn’t decide if maybe he was supposed to say something, or wait for Cas to say something, or if maybe they’d run out of words and this would be the end of it. 

But that was just the thing: He didn’t  _ want  _ this to be the end of it.

He wanted-- he wanted--

“Listen, Cas--”

“Dean I--”

They shared a nervous chuckle over their attempt to speak at the same time. “You go,” Cas conceded. “I’ve said quite a bit already.”

“I knew,” he blurted before he could think better of it, “that night when you kissed me, I-- I knew. And I liked it. And I wanted to kiss you back but I… I couldn’t be gay. I loved you so much it twisted me up inside but I  _ couldn’t be gay _ , Cas, I… didn’t know how to…” He threw up his hands and blinked hard against the tears that threatened. “God, I’m so sorry.”

He didn’t miss Cas taking a half a step forward, closing the distance between them. “I was mad at you. I blamed you for a long time. I even said it out loud, when I’d do a hit or take a needle, sometimes…  _ I wouldn’t be like this if not for that asshole _ .” Dean’s gut dropped, and he flinched. “But… therapy and parenting, they both have a way of changing your perspective. One thing I’ve learned is to take responsibility for myself. Own your choices, that’s-- it’s funny, because they taught us that in rehab, and I remember when Jack was in kindergarten, he had the same lesson handed down by a teacher. I’m not responsible for others and I can’t make their choices, but I am responsible for making good choices for myself in response to the actions of others. And my response to your actions was… extreme. But it brought me Jack. And it gave me an interesting backstory to go with my unassuming suit and tie.” He shrugged and smiled big, and Dean could tell he was trying to make light of it, but he couldn’t meet him there.

“Tell me something else,” he said softly, and he noticed then that at some point they’d shifted, and they were mirroring each other, facing each other as they leaned against the cool brick of the restaurant. It was dark save for the faint glow offered by a streetlight all the way on the other side of the street, and the conversations of their classmates both inside and outside had become a muted background noise.

“What else?”

“Anything. Tell me anything.”

“I’ve missed you.”

“God, Cas.” He fell forward and took Castiel up in a fierce hug, sobbing just once and then clutching tighter. Arms came around him in turn, and he couldn’t be sure how long they stood there just like that, hugging and holding on as though no force in the universe could make them let go. “I know you said… but I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” Was he actually crying? Because Dean Winchester did not cry.

He was disappointed when Cas broke the hug, but only for the moment it took to realize the other man had intertwined the fingers of his right hand and Dean’s left, and they were standing there outside the restaurant playing host to their 20-year high school class reunion, facing each other and holding hands like a couple of young lovers. He knew he was a mess, and looking at Castiel at least confirmed that those beautiful blue eyes were shining with their own unshed tears. He sniffled. “So what now?”

“We really should go back to the reunion at some point,” Cas said warmly, but Dean leaned back on decades-old memories to a boy whose voice had a particular hitch when he was saying something he didn’t really mean.

“Or we could just, you know. Not.”

Cas snorted a laugh. “You wanna play hooky?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time, huh?” He took a single, daring step forward to close the distance between their bodies. Castiel didn’t pull away, and now Dean was close enough to smell his cologne.

“They’ll be serving dinner soon.”

“Are we at the same table?”

“No.”

“Then I’m not hungry. Not for food.” And, mind made up, Dean took the final leap and leaned in to press his lips against Castiel’s. 

There weren’t sparks, or butterflies, or toe-curling tickles in his gut. It wasn’t any of that cliche first-kiss bullshit.

This? This felt like coming home. It was warm and familiar in a way a brand-new thing had no business being, and he melted into Cas, eyes closed and arms clutching at the other man’s back, as he turned his head a bit to deepen the kiss.

It probably would’ve gone on for awhile, except that he heard a voice behind them holler, “Fucking  _ finally _ , Winchester!” and some applause and hoots of approval, and he had to break the kiss to look over Cas’ shoulder at the small group that had gathered -- a half-dozen of their former classmates, Benny Lafitte at the front.

“Move it or lose it, Lafitte. Not puttin’ on a show, here.”

“Sure you’re not, Cher.” It was left hanging in the air, certainly patronizing but not aggressive or belittling, and anyway, Dean couldn’t find it in himself to give a damn. “Dinner’s served, lovebirds. Just came out to see if you’d be joining us.”

“Movin’ my seat to sit by him.” Dean wasn’t looking at Benny anymore. He was looking at Cas, couldn’t look away from Cas, was completely hypnotized by his smoldering eyes and flushed cheeks and…

“We’ll be in shortly,” Cas offered, turning to face their old friends, fingers still knitted through Dean’s like he might never let go. “And we intend to rearrange our seating.”

“You’re so polite,” Dean quipped, tilting his head and feeling, if only for the moment, like a proud boyfriend.

“Why thank you.”

“And I’m gonna lose my appetite,” Benny returned. “Get your asses in here.”

“Fine, fine.” Dean rolled his eyes and, fingers still laced with Cas’, began to make his way out of the shadows and up toward his old friend.

“You owe me a drink,” Benny put in with a raised pointer finger as Dean came past him.

“So many drinks,” Dean agreed. “But that’s gonna have to be another night.”

“Right, right. Because tonight you’re b--”

“Stop.”

“Sorry Brother.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “We’ll catch up tomorrow, all right? Drinks at the Roadhouse on me?”

“As long as you promise to spare the details,” Benny agreed as they stepped back into the restaurant.

“Seems fair.”

“This way, Dean.” Dean felt a tug at his hand and leaned in toward it. He let Castiel lead them to the table where his place card was, and he sat. Dean sat down next to him in a chair labeled  _ Michael Milton _ and assumed the place like he belonged there.

No one questioned it.

And all the while, and all through speeches and dinner and into dessert, he never let go of Castiel’s hand.


	6. We Have a Second Chance

In the morning, it took awhile for Dean to remember where he was and why, and who was asleep next to him in this bed that definitely wasn’t his own. But when the memories of the previous night came flooding back, he smiled, opened his eyes, and glanced to his left.

So it wasn’t a dream. Castiel was still there.

His face was still relaxed in sleep, and without the creases and wrinkles that had been more obvious last night when he was tense, Dean could still make out the innocent kid he’d been in love with when he was 18.

Dean had spent dinner and the entire rest of the reunion in a starry-eyed haze. He and Cas had made rounds of socialization together, as though it were completely planned and natural and  _ of course _ all of their former classmates should know they were a couple, didn’t they get the memo?

It should have been awkward and it should have felt more new and different, but it wasn’t, and it didn’t. And waking up with the weight of Cas’ right arm across his back felt routine in a way it had no business being.

“I can literally feel you staring.”

Dean huffed a laugh at the grumble of words that were delivered in a tone so deep, they sounded like they’d bubbled up from Castiel’s toes. “Just making up for lost time.”

“Hmmmm…” Another moment, and Castiel licked his lips and then opened his eyes, though he still didn’t lift his head from the pillow. “Hello, Dean.”

“Hi Cas.”

Cas wormed his body to close the small gap between them and then leaned in to press a chaste kiss to Dean’s still-smiling lips. “I’m glad you stayed.”

“Me too.” Another kiss, deeper and more exploratory than the first. Dean pulled back only a moment, mostly to catch a look at Cas’ heavy-lidded eyes before diving back into the well of his lips. 

When they’d left the reunion the night before, on the agreement that they’d reconvene at the hotel in Cas’ room ( _“I’m half afraid we’d show up to my place to find Sam waiting up on the couch. If he’s there, he’s due for a lesson in staying out of my personal affairs”_ ) they’d never moved past a lazy makeout session, interspersed with soft conversation, slowly filling in gaps of the last 20 years. Eventually they’d curled into one another, and their voices had drifted off until they fell asleep holding each other loosely, still fully clothed.

This morning, though, Dean could feel the tightness in his slacks, and yeah, his body was definitely interested in the things Cas was doing and the sounds he was making, and Dean really wanted to have more skin available to the curious fingertips that were now skating down his ribs. He sat up enough to shrug out of his button-down and undershirt, and started tugging at Cas’ shirt with a bit of urgency. Cas held up a hand and gracefully removed his top garments as well before returning lips to lips and hands to now-bare skin.

Heaven. This was heaven. At some point last night Dean must’ve died and Castiel, Master of Awesome Kisses and Lighting Loins On Fire, was a fixture of that heaven, Dean was sure of it.

By the time Dean’s thoughts caught up with the moment, Cas’ pants were already gone and his hands were busy with Dean’s belt, and then his button, and then his zipper, and his pants were at his knees, and Dean figured he ought to say something at this point, but he didn’t quite remember how to make a sentence.

“I, uh. I wasn’t-- I don’t have--”

“It’s OK,” Cas panted as he kissed and nibbled at Dean’s chin. “Here.” Hands guided Dean’s right hand to wrap around an erection that didn’t belong to him, and a moment later, he felt a tender grip around his own. That was perfect, just perfect, and Dean captured Cas’ lips again and lost himself in the slide of tongues in mouths and hands over flesh. It was sloppy and sweaty and Dean had the fleeting thought that this was probably something like what it might have been like if they’d actually fooled around when they were teens.

Details of the aftermath aside, he was suddenly glad they hadn’t. This, right here, was so much better.

It ended just as messy and sloppy as it had been all along, with a sticky mess between their sweat-slick bodies, and nothing but the bedsheets handy for cleanup.

“So what now?” Dean asked as they settled back down on the bed, this time sans clothing and in a spoon position, with Dean holding Cas against the curve of his slightly larger frame.

“I should call Jack,” he reasoned, “and maybe Jody, too. Check in with my office. And then…”

“That’s all well and good, but I meant like… tomorrow, or the next day, or whatever, whenever you have to go home. Because you do have to go home, and I…”

“Well I meant right now. We have all day. So.” Cas rolled and sat up, and looked down at Dean, holding eye contact. “I’m going to shower and get dressed, and then  _ you’re  _ going to shower and get dressed. I’m going to call my son and my neighbor, and you’re going to call your brother, and then… then whatever.”

“I. OK.” Dean had a thought, and the corners of his mouth picked up. “You wanna come see my shop?”

***

Dean wasn’t wrong; Cas had to go home eventually, and judging from the number of emails already accumulating in his office inbox, probably sooner rather than later. He answered a few quick ones and cleaned out some junk just to lower the number of unread messages, then fired off an email to his boss, indicating he was still in Kansas, and would look to book a flight home on Tuesday.

Then he called Jack, who was “fine, Dad. I’m an adult now, have a little faith,” and Jody who wanted to know if he’d “bagged a boyfriend” and that was about the time he heard the shower shut off. “I’ll give you all the details later, I promise. But I need to go.”

“He’s there right now, isn’t he?”

“Bye Jody.”

“Wrap it up, Castiel. And I don’t mean the phone call.”

He rolled his eyes.  _ “Goodbye _ . Jody.” He hung up as Dean sauntered out, fresh and clean and wearing a towel around his waist.

It was a picture Cas wanted to see in his life every day for the rest of forever.

His own turn in the shower was quick and efficient, and he dressed and followed Dean out the door.

“I remember this car,” he remarked, running a fond hand over the Impala’s roof. She didn’t look a day older than the last time he’d seen her. “She was your dad’s.”

“Yeah. She, uh.” They got in, and Dean started the ignition. “Back in ‘05, Dad was in a wreck. The car was totaled, and Dad… they say the driver of the semi that hit him fell asleep at the wheel.” There was a hard beat of silence. “I was determined that somebody was gonna make it out of that wreck alive, and when it wasn’t dad, I rebuilt his baby from the ground up. She’s mine now, and she runs like she’s new, I make damn sure of that.”

“I’m sorry about your dad.” He hadn’t cared much for John when they were kids, but now, a single dad himself, Castiel could find it in his heart to pardon some parts of his personality. It wasn’t an easy row to hoe, that was for sure.

“It’s past.” Dean offered quietly, and then put the car in gear and headed out of the hotel’s parking lot.

The drive was spent in a silence that really should have felt at least a little uncomfortable. 

Somehow, it wasn’t.

Somehow, it felt like they’d done it a lot more times than this, and that they hadn’t just recapped 20 years of growth and angst in the space of 18 hours.

Castiel sighed as they pulled up to Singer Auto, and when Dean looked at him, he grinned. “C’mon.”

It took Castiel about five seconds inside Singer Auto to accept the fact that he would never get Dean to give this up and move to California. Never in a million years. He knew better than to even ask.

Dean’s business -  _ Dean’s business  _ \- was thriving, his mark was everywhere, his employees clearly loved and respected him, and the feeling was mutual - Dean was almost comically beaming with pride.

Cas’ heart sank a little.

He fired off a text to Jack when Dean wasn’t looking.

The response pinged back within two minutes, and when Cas looked down to read his screen, Dean took notice. “Everything OKt?” He asked with a furrowed brow.

“What? Oh. Yeah. It’s just Jack.” He waved a hand in dismissal and checked the text again.

_ I don’t know if it occurred to you, but I’m moving to Stanford in two months _ , it read.  _ I intend to do my own laundry and EVERYTHING. Don’t make this about me. Own your choices, Pop. _

He sighed, but when he looked back at Dean, his lips turned up in a smile on instinct.

“You’ve done a great job here, Dean. It’s… amazing. I remember…” Cas nodded toward the shop’s waiting room with twinkling eyes and a tilt of his head. “I remember sitting in there after school every Thursday for a year and a half while you worked for Bobby after school. For three hours, you worked, and I did homework. Or… I told you I was doing homework, anyway.”

“You weren’t?”

“Busted.”

Dean laughed, and then reached down and took Castiel’s hand. Again. Dean seemed to have an infatuation with hand-holding, and Cas called it even odds as to whether it was a kink of some kind, or if Dean was afraid that if he let go for too long, Cas would drift away.

Which… had to happen eventually. The persistent nagging thought flitted about his brain like a gnat, and Cas shook his head to try to clear it, but to no avail.

He squeezed at Dean’s hand.

Dean squeezed back. “You seem distracted.”

“You’re two for two.” He let Dean lead him to his office, and Dean leaned against the front of his slightly cluttered desk, ankles crossed, one hand clutching the edge of the desk and the other still loosely holding Cas’. He looked at Castiel, eyebrows raised. “Dean, I…”

“You know the last time we did this, it didn’t end well.”

He could only manage a twitch of his mouth and a soft “hmph” in reply. “I remember.” He kicked a foot out, playfully nudging the toe of his shoe against Dean’s sneaker. “Seems I have a bad habit of overplaying my hand when it comes to you.”

“I’m not-- Cas, are you kidding me? This is… I’m doing anything but running away, here.”

“That’s just it, that’s. You’re not the one who has to leave this time. I do. And I… really don’t want to. So much so that I texted my son to ask him how he’d feel about winters in Kansas after a lifetime spent in SoCal.” He caught just enough of Dean’s expression to want to look away again. “It was stupid.”

“I wouldn’t call it stupid. Glaringly optimistic, maybe. Possibly reckless. But not  _ stupid _ .”

“When I came here, it was on a one-way ticket. I had no idea what would happen when-- if-- I saw you again, but I had to leave the door open for a chance. This is… this is better than I ever could have hoped for, and I don’t want to walk away from it. I can’t.”

“What are you saying, Cas?”

Something possessed him then, something otherworldly, because Cas wasn’t this bold, not even in his ad pitches in the boardroom. He didn’t have this kind of confidence about anything, ever. But then, Dean meant more to him than any of that stuff, and he was worth taking the chance, even if putting himself out there might end up crushing Cas a second time. It was a calculated risk, and it was worth it. “Dean Winchester, I’m in love with you. I was in love with you 20 years ago, and I’m in love with you now, and so help me, Dean, I’m not going home without you. I can’t.”


	7. And I'm Not Going Home Without You

On Cas’ declaration, Dean opened and closed his mouth silently three times before he managed to make sounds that, to his ears, sounded like words. “I… can’t leave, Cas. You gotta understand--” he gestured around to indicate his shop, and he knew his face looked torn, crestfallen even, because his heart definitely felt both of those things. “This… this is…”

“I know.” Cas looked down, stubbing the toe of his foot against the floor for a beat, before looking up again. “Which is why I would have to move here. To Lawrence.”

“Cas…” He really, really wished his brain would turn back on and catch up with the situation, because he’d like to be able to say more than a couple of words at a time.

“Dean, the last time I lost you, I spent two years on a downward spiral that left me broke, homeless and nearly dead by the end of it. I will not lose you again.” Dean knew that tone. It was deeper than when he’d heard it when they were teens, but it meant the same: Resolution. Steadfast dedication. There was no talking Castiel Shurley out of anything when he spoke like that.

“Well then I’ll have to insist that you stay with me until you get on your feet. Or… longer, you know. If you don’t want to leave.”

“That’s sort of my whole point, I don’t want to leave.” And there, there was the dry, pointed humor Dean had always loved Cas for. He pulled him close and kissed him, good and thorough, and then took his face between his hands and looked down into those too-blue eyes he’d dreamed about for more than two decades. 

“We could try the long-distance thing. Skype, text…”

“With all due respect, Dean, we’re 38 years old. I want to be with you, and you want to be with me, and and it’s feasible - if not downright simple - for me to leave California and move here. I’m going to go home just long enough to pack up my life, put my house on the market, and move here.”

“What about Jack?”

“His exact words to me were that once he leaves for Stanford, he’s going to do his own laundry and  _ everything _ , and that I should stop making this about him and own my choices.”

Dean let out a full-bellied laugh at that. “I like him.”

“He’s a good kid.” Cas paused, and Dean felt himself under the microscope of his scrutiny, but he let himself be studied because… well, it had been a lot of years, and he had forgotten how good it felt. “I can’t wait for you to meet him.”

Dean smiled into their next kiss, which he initiated with his hands still cupped around Castiel’s face. It was tender, and the next one was chaste, and the one after that was exploratory, and they were all perfect. He had 20 years of missed kisses to make up for, and he intended to do so with every presented opportunity. 

“Dean?” Castiel mumbled it into his mouth.

“Hmmm?”

“We should probably…”

“Be more naked?”

“Be more  _ private _ ,” Castiel supplied, their teeth clicking with the next attempt at a kiss and well - sometimes smiles were more important than perfect kisses, Dean supposed. “Like maybe, since you’re giving me a tour, you could… show me your house?”

“Mmhmmm there’s a bedroom in my house.” His hands found Cas’ hips, and he tilted his head and tried to get a better angle for tasting Cas’ whole mouth with his tongue in one sweep. “Two, even.”

“Let’s go, then.” Suddenly, Cas’ mouth was gone from his, and an insistent hand was tugging at Dean’s arm.

He followed without hesitation.

***

Like everything about this whole situation, moving from California to Kansas really should have been harder than it was, but it wasn’t. Castiel flew home on Monday night, handed in his resignation on Tuesday, and called the realtor and started packing up his house on Wednesday. On Thursday, he sat down with Jack to hammer out the details: Jack would be living in campus housing in Governor’s Corner, where housing would be available through the summer. He’d be moving in the last week of August, and Cas would come back for a week to help him transition, and to clean the rest of their things out of the house. Actually, Cas amended after some thought, he would come back sporadically over the summer, and sometimes unannounced, just to make sure the house was still standing and no one had graffitied the walls during a drunken rave.

“C’mon, Dad. You know me better than that.”

“Then you won’t have any problems with me dropping by, will you?” Cas raised his eyebrows in challenge, and Jack sighed, complacent.

Ideally the house would sell sometime in the Fall. 

Jack would fly to Kansas for his first snowy Christmas.

The rest… the rest they’d make up as they went, same as they’d always done.

Cas talked to Dean every day for two weeks. They texted, and they Skyped, and they called at night and talked on the phone until one of them fell asleep. It was just long enough of a separation for Castiel to get some perspective, and to realize it wasn’t enough.

He was making the right choice.

A U-Haul arrived in the driveway on a Saturday, the Saturday after Castiel’s last day of work at the ad agency where he’d been a “valued member of the team” since his college internship. Cas and Jack and Jody and Alex tumbled out of the house, surprised.

“I thought you were going to pick it up tomorrow,” Jody asked, hands on her hips, head tilted curiously to one side.

“That was the plan,” Cas supplied as the driver’s door opened and the man behind the wheel stepped out. “I-- ...Dean?”

“Heya Cas.”

“What are you-- how did you--?”

“Well see I was thinking,” Dean said as he rounded the truck to open the back end, “You said you couldn’t go home without me, right? A-- and well, after you left to come back here, my home didn’t feel like home without you in it so I just thought that really… really what I should do is come out here and make the drive back with you. You know. So that you… didn’t have to come home without me.”

Cas laughed, quietly at first, and then bubbling up out of his mouth like a fountain. “That is the craziest, most back-asswards logic I’ve ever heard.”

“Yeah, maybe it is.” Dean nodded in agreement and leaned against the truck. “So how about you introduce me to your kid, and I’ll help you pack up your stuff, and tomorrow, we’ll go home together?”

“Home.” Cas looked over at Jack, Jody and Alex, and then back at Dean. “Yeah. I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.”


End file.
